That is the claim of Eddie Jordan, the former F1 team owner and boss who recently corrected predicted that Lewis Hamilton would move to Mercedes next year, pushing Michael Schumacher back into retirement.

Now, he thinks Finn Kovalainen is ready to leave Caterham after three years with the 2010 startup.

Kovalainen, 30, said in Korea on Saturday: "At some point ... I'm getting old and if I want to be successful and win races, I have to look at the options.

"We should be doing better than what we're doing. At the moment, we don't have any deals (for 2013) with everyone. We're talking."

Jordan commented on BBC television: "For me, that's the first time I've seen Heikki's body language tell us emphatically that he wants out of there.

"He wants to move on and get in a better team before his career finishes."